Sunday 4 July 2010

Flower Fairies

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In the third of my series on the fragrance wheel, I'll be throwing a bone to all the real girly girls out there who love flowery, truly romantic fragrances.

This doesn't mean that such fragrances are always superficial, trite or cheap-smelling; quite to the contrary, many floral fragrances are classics that have been adored by women for many years.

One such classic ladies' perfume is Cacharel's Anaïs Anaïs, which combines rose and lily with some of the woodier and more oriental scents previously discussed, such as sandalwood and amber, to make one of the beauty world's most-loved perfumes. Cacharel hit the spot again with Noa and Noa Perle, using a similar blend to capture the essence of forest flowers on women's wrists the world over.

Another cult favourite came to the world of floral perfume in the form of Yves Saint Laurent's Paris, which also nods to the woods with its sandalwood and amber notes alongside its dominant mimosa flower, orange and rose. Originally released in 1983, it's also packed with jasmine and violet, and has inspired many spinoffs from YSL, including the more recently released Parisienne, which is more heavily dominated by violets and is more sugary.

However, floral fragrances are not just stuck in the seventies and eighties, with many more modern floral perfumes having taken the world by storm in recent years. Daisy by Marc Jacobs, for instance, captured the world with its dreamy and dazzling gold bottle, adorned with daisies. It not only uses the popular violet scent but also utilises jasmine and gardenia along with some fruitier undertones and muskier, more vanilla-like overtones. This captivating combination has held the public's attention ever since it first hit the shelves (although it is perhaps not purely floral due to its reliance on other members of the fragrance wheel, perhaps making it more of a Fougère fragrance - more on this soon!).

Other, perhaps more obvious, examples of floral fragrances that have arrived on the scene this century include Valentino's Rock 'n' Rose. Categorised as a floral oriental perfume, it blends orange flower and rose to create an edgy, unique new scent for modern young women. Lastly for today, there's Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb, which almost speaks for itself. It contains everything you could think of for a floral scent: jasmine, rose, orchid, freesia, and a hint of patchouli just to mix things up a bit. This last one is one of my favourites, although I'd also recommend Anaïs Anaïs (mentioned before) - though I'm sure there's a myriad of floral fragrances out there just waiting for me to discover them.

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